Monitoring system, camera adjusting method and vehicle monitoring system
First Claim
1. A monitoring system comprising a twin-camera composed of first and second cameras forming a pair,said first and second cameras being disposed such that at least portions of the ranges to be captured thereby overlap each other, and that the optical axes thereof form a predetermined angle of divergence when said optical axes are projected on a camera installation plane parallel to said optical axes,the twist around the optical axis of at least one of said first and second cameras being set such that when an u-v plane of the visual field range of said at least one camera is projected on a reference plane at a right angle to the optical axis of said at least one camera, the u axis is not parallel to and does not intersect, at a right angle, the intersecting line of said reference plane and said camera installation plane.
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Accused Products
Abstract
To monitor both the surrounding of a vehicle and a place distant therefrom, there is mounted on the vehicle a twin-camera (23) composed of cameras (23L, 23R) forming a pair. To properly set the postures of the cameras (23L, 23R), their tilts, pans and twists around the optical axes are adjusted using, as indexes, the lengths of the portions, as captured by the cameras (23L, 23R), of the vehicle center line (BCL), the lengths of the portions, as captured by the cameras (23L, 23R), of the vehicle rear-end line (BEL), and the areas of the blind zones (S) in the capturing directions.
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Citations
10 Claims
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1. A monitoring system comprising a twin-camera composed of first and second cameras forming a pair,
said first and second cameras being disposed such that at least portions of the ranges to be captured thereby overlap each other, and that the optical axes thereof form a predetermined angle of divergence when said optical axes are projected on a camera installation plane parallel to said optical axes, the twist around the optical axis of at least one of said first and second cameras being set such that when an u-v plane of the visual field range of said at least one camera is projected on a reference plane at a right angle to the optical axis of said at least one camera, the u axis is not parallel to and does not intersect, at a right angle, the intersecting line of said reference plane and said camera installation plane.
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5. A method of adjusting a twin-camera composed of a pair of cameras mounted on a vehicle for capturing both the surrounding of said vehicle and a place distant therefrom,
said camera adjusting method being characterized in that the tilt, pan and twist around the optical axis of each of said pair of cameras, are adjusted using, as indexes, the length of a portion, as captured by each camera, of the straight line indicating the capturing direction, the length of a portion, as captured by each camera, of a straight line extending along the vehicle end, and the area of the blind zone in the capturing direction.
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8. A vehicle monitoring system comprising:
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one or a plurality of cameras for capturing the surrounding of a vehicle; and an image processing unit for generating, from the images captured by said one or plurality of cameras, a synthesized image viewed from a virtual view point, at least one of said one or plurality of cameras being so retractably mounted on said vehicle as to be ejected when said camera is used, and as to be housed when said camera is not used; wherein said retractable camera is arranged such that its ejecting and housing is controlled according to at least one of the gear setting or travelling speed of said vehicle.
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Specification